10 Actor Goals I Have For 2015

With the new year approaching, I’ve decided to share my 10 actors goals for the coming year. I call them goals instead of resolutions because I feel like goals can happen any time during the year and resolutions have to start on January 1st. Some of these things may be goals that you have too, or some of them might be things that you are already rocking at already.

So without further explanation, here are my 10 actor goals for 2015!

1) Get back into class. It’s been a while since I had been in a good acting class. Part of that reason is because of money (more on that in a moment). But a bigger part of that has to do with the loss of my long time acting coach. I was studying with Kip King from when I was 19 until his death. And his death hit me hard. If you could have an acting coach soulmate, Kip was totally mine. I tried getting back into class soon after his death, but it really depressed me that he wasn’t there. But it’s time for me to get back into the classroom and work on my craft some more! I’m looking into improv (but not at the Groundlings because they dedicated their classroom to Kip after he died and I don’t think I can go to class in the “Kip King Classroom”) and hopefully will be in class by the spring!

2) Work on regularly self-submitting. While I do have agents and they submit me for jobs all the time, I need to get better on my self-submissions. Some days I’m great about it and then there are times that I don’t even check Actors Access or LA Casting for a few days. I need to schedule time every day that I go onto the sites and search for castings. This shouldn’t take a ton of my time, but I need to get back into the habit of doing it. I’ve been lazy since I got representation and there are lots of great short films on those sites that I’d love to work on!

3) Continue building my actor community. There are so many great ways to find other actors and like-minded people to connect with. Ms. In The Biz has a great Facebook group and so does Inside Acting Podcast (full disclosure: I’m the production coordinator for the podcast). But I need to work on being more active in those communities and meeting more people. It’s easy to be secluded in our own personal bubble and I want to break out and find people who inspire me to push myself and can help create projects with me.

4) Work on strengthening existing relationships. On a similar note of my last goal, I want to work on my relationships with industry people that are already established. Maybe invite people out to coffee to catch up or try to help them out with their latest project. Again, these people are the ones who can inspire me and help me out. But I don’t want to ask for help from someone who I have a lukewarm relationship with.

5) Continue on my weight-loss journey. This one is a bit more personal for me. I’m currently working on losing over 100 pounds for the third (and hopefully last) time. I’ve made some serious steps toward this goal this year including finding a workout class that I go to 3-4 times a week and cooking for myself instead of getting pre-made food at the grocery store. As my weight goes down, my “type” will change as well. It might not change for the better because it seems like extremes are in (as in extremely fat versus moderately fat), but even if it makes acting jobs harder to come by, my health is more important.

6) Work on personal development. I used to be very into personal development. I would read at least 2 books a month on how to better myself. I’ve slacked off a bit in my reading, but I’m ready to kickstart it again (especially since my brother and sister-in-law got my a gift card for Amazon for Hanukkah so I can order lots of Kindle books). I want to make sure that I work on being present and grateful in my life and personal development books really help bring me to that place.

7) Get a better day job situation. My day job situation right now pretty much stinks. I have one day job that is a regular gig, but I only make about half of what I need each month from that job. I have about 5 other jobs but sadly all of them are on-call positions and I have no idea when/if they will need me. For example, one of my day jobs has only needed me 2 hours over the last 10 weeks. I need to find a better second day job so I can eliminate the 5 day jobs that don’t really use me.

8) Get out of debt. This will not all happen this year as I do have a decent amount of credit card debt. I used my credit card to live off of for almost a year once when I wasn’t able to find a day job. While it saved me from going into collections with my bills, I now have a lot to pay off and the interest rate is not great. I need to start putting more and more money down onto my card so I can eliminate the debt soon (finding a new day job will help with this).

9) Take myself seriously so others will too. This one is a weird one. I feel like I take myself and my acting career seriously. But for some reason, many people don’t feel like (or realize) that my ultimate goal is to be an actor. When people I know are casting projects and there is a part that is perfect for me, I will submit myself with a little note saying that I’d love to be a part of it. A lot of times, their reactions are something like, “Oh, I forgot that you do acting. I should have thought of you.”. I don’t know what people think first of me, but I’m going to work this year on making that first thought be acting.

10) Have more fun. Last year was a bit of a tough year for me and my family, especially in the beginning of the year. But things are getting better and instead of stressing out or being depressed, I want to have more fun. I have a Disneyland pass (I absolutely love Disneyland!), but I haven’t taken advantage of it recently. And there are so many amazing museums in LA that I haven’t been to that I want to go check out. I really need to schedule fun time into my weeks so months don’t go by without me doing something just for myself and not for my career. First thing that will be in my schedule will be going to Disneyland once all the Christmas time crowds are gone.

So those are my 10 actor goals for the coming year. I’d love to hear what your goals are for 2015 so we can all support each other in making sure we get each one done! Share your goals in the comments and I’m hoping on doing a goals check-in post in the next few months!

Actress/Blogger -
I’m originally from the Bay Area, but I’ve been in LA for over a decade now, so I consider myself a native. I’m working as both a blogger and actress (with a couple of day jobs to pay the bills on the side). I love being in the entertainment industry where every day is an adventure! When I’m not working on my career, I’m either reading (I’m a total book nerd) or enjoying my newfound love for spin class (which is helping towards my goal of losing 100 pounds for the last time). I like to joke that I’m a girl with Southern charm and Jersey moxie, which I think has worked well for me so far!

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